# New Tax or attempt at something else?



## macjoe53 (Jul 8, 2007)

On the face of it, the SCHIP tax is aimed at raising the money to pay for government owned and run healthcare (socialized medicine if you ask me). But I think there is a hidden agenda in all this - tobacco prohibition. Some of the elected officials are obviously being lead around by their noses by the anti-smoking Nazis and they are smart enough to know that calling for a open prohibition will not work. So instead they may be going for an economic prohibition by making the cost so high that people will stop smoking. 

This won't work either but they have such tunnel vision that they can't see the train coming down the track behind them. The only ones who will win if their is a prohibition of tobacco are organized crime families and smugglers (Think about the liquor prohibition after the Volstead Act of 1919 and the current drug smuggling problem). 

Anyone who can read a history book can learn that all prohibition did was solidify organize crime families and made them a fortune. Society is still suffering from the growth of organized crime and like cockroaches, no one has found a way to eliminate it. 

And how much money is spent every year on eliminating drug trafficking? With our borders as porous as they are, does anyone really believe that there will not be some drug cartel members who decide that they can exploit the market for blackmarket non-taxed cigars? After all, cigars and cigarettes are still legal so the risk of going to jail is probably going to be less severe. People caught smuggling non-taxed tobacco will probably wind up paying a fine and then sent on their way again.

The bottom line is that the increased tax is going to cost the government more money than it makes. 

I am in favor of making healthcare more affordable for everyone - not just those making less than $30,000 a year. But this can be funded other ways such as reducing the amount of money the U.S. taxpayers send to other countries for foreign aid or the reduction of pork barrel projects that waste taxpayer dollars by funding special interest projects and studies. 


Thank you for allowing me to vent.

:2:u

Who are the bigger idiots? Those in congress or those who vote them in?


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## macjoe53 (Jul 8, 2007)

Just found this. It reinforces my previous post.

http://lcwevents.net/CigarTax.html


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## kjjm4 (May 8, 2007)

If you read some of the replies sent by Senators, they admit that its a backdoor attempt at prohibition and that they intend to make it too expensive for people to smoke.


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## macjoe53 (Jul 8, 2007)

kjjm4 said:


> If you read some of the replies sent by Senators, they admit that its a backdoor attempt at prohibition and that they intend to make it too expensive for people to smoke.


That's my point. If they call it a tax increase to provide health care it has a chance. If they introduce a bill creating a new prohibition it will go down in flames.


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